To Go Over
by Madzapan
Summary: Ripred and Luxa... in the Overland? Three years after the fulfillment of the Prophecy of Time, Luxa is yearning to see Gregor again (As is Ripred, though he would never admit it). Ripred must find a way to safely spirit Luxa, Aurora, himself, and possibly an unexpected guest to the Overland. But they will need the perfect disguise...
1. Prologue: In the Crypt over the Waterway

To Go Over

Luxa leapt gracefully off her bat, Aurora, landing lightly on the cavern floor. Ripred slunk into the crypt. After flying on a bat over the Waterway, the rat was glad to have the ground under his paws once more.

"Why on earth," he began, "would anyone bond with a flier?"

Aurora scowled at him as she fluttered inside. Luxa seemed unperturbed.

"Ripred, I have a gift for you." She tossed him a flask. After sniffing its contents, the rat almost seemed to smile.

"Shrimp in cream sauce," said Ripred, with amusement.

"Yes," she replied, "and I have brought stew for myself. Please, sit you down, eat."

"A picnic?" he sneered.

Luxa looked shaken as she said, "Of course, what else?"

"What did you really bring me here for?"

The last drops of shrimp in cream sauce had disappeared into the bottomless pit that was Ripred's stomach. He looked pointedly at Luxa.

"I want to go and see Gregor."

Ripred ran over to her quickly, his hot breath washing over her face as he spoke, nearly spitting with anger. "I have told you in the past, it is better to forget him. Act like he never existed, if you like. But never, _never_ may you go to see him. There has been far too much pain centered around him, and the last thing the subjects need is for their Queen to go missing. Remember you, they still mend from the war."

"Three years ago, it was! Gregor left us years ago! How can they still heal?" Luxa was indignant… but scared. This kind of response was what she'd had nightmares about.

"Luxa, be reasonable! You and I both are pained by the knowledge that we can never see the Overlander again!" said Ripred, in a softer tone. He usually made it a point to cover up how much he missed Gregor.

"Besides," he continued, "you would look out of place. The Overlanders would notice immediately, and you would be a subject of experiments and cages."

Luxa looked down at her pale body, the veins showing through the white skin. "You are right, Ripred, but have you not gone Over? I imagine you would look more out of place than I."

"I'm fast, I'm dark, and I don't let people see me. My Queen," and here, his tone was mocking, "you are far too delicate to go Over."

"…" Luxa was beaten.

Or so it seemed.

"I love him."

Ripred considered this for a moment, then spoke: "I'll see what I can come up with."


	2. Leaving

Leaving

Ripred paced, deciding if it was a good idea.

Could she really handle herself up there alone?

For days, the rat had pondered over his already-formulated plan. He had covered her in muck from the riverbank, to darken her skin until she reached Gregor's apartment. He had something else up his sleeve for when he went Over...yes, Ripred had thought about seeing Gregor for years, had turned the same idea for his disguise over and over in his mind, but it was risky.

He decided he liked risky.

"Luxa," he said cooly as she walked into the crypt. "I'm glad you came."

Her pale eyes flashed. They were the only part of her he could not disguise with mud. "Of course I came," she hissed, "How could I stay away?" Ripred grinned at her, teasing. It was so obvious, the reason she was doing this. He felt that he hid his own reasons—the same reasons—well. He cared about that boy, though of course not in the same way.

As Ripred led her up the stairs of the tunnel, Luxa began to shake. The longest she had been in the Overland was no more than an intense ten seconds, just to see the moon, for Gregor. The idea of staying there for a long time was terrifying.

The boulder rolled away, and the Underland princess stared at the night sky. By some miracle, the clouds of smog had left for the night and the stars shone over Central Park. Luxa froze.

"Come on, Highness, I don't have all day." With this, Ripred half threw, half pushed Luxa into the night air. "Apartment building's less than a mile east," he told the bewildered girl. "But for goodness sake, however much you hate it here, stay out of—"

The boulder rolled across the opening, and in a matter of minutes Luxa was farther from her home than she had ever been. Looking over her shoulder at the shadows of trees—something she had never seen—she set her chin and walked in the direction she thought was east.

It was so hard to tell with the stars distracting her.

* * *

It was very dark, so dark that he had to use echolocation. Or he would have had to, if he didn't know where he was going.

But Ripred always knew where he was going. In this case, it was down the beach with no torch, Aurora walking silently behind, gripping his tail like a vice. It didn't occur to her that she could use echolocation too. The gnawer scoured the sand and mud along the edge of the river, looking for any sign that someone had been there beforehand. His heart sank when they came to the outlet leading into the Waterway. The two had checked there already, after flying down from the crypt. Aurora had cried the whole time, and Ripred's ear still hurt from where she had bitten him. He supposed pushing her bond out of the Underland wasn't welcome for some reason.

And as Ripred was about to turn and tell Aurora it was no use, he spotted what he had been looking for, floating no more than twenty feet from the outlet.

Ares' body. What was left of it. Or, what Ripred thought was what was left of it. It was a long shot to find, having been three years, but the rat was certain that the salt of this part of the Waterway would preserve it just long enough. He was right.

He pointed, and Aurora silently flew to the skeleton, clutching it in her claws and shuddering when a rib fell into the water here and there.

Ripred mounted wordlessly, and after steeling himself for flight, they took off toward the crypt once more.

* * *

**Hope you liked the cliffhanger! xD**

**Please remember to REVIEW—and from now on I've decided to post a chapter once a week, and if I don't then two the next week! Woot!**


	3. A Crazy Idea

A Crazy Plan

After landing in the crypt and dropping Ares' body with a thud, Aurora looked on as Ripred unloaded fruits of different sizes from the pouch slung over her back. When the bag was empty, he had half a dozen brightly-colored fruits at his feet.

"What are they for?" she purred. He had told Aurora nothing of his plan.

"They're for when we go Over—our disguise." Ripred still didn't want to explain for fear of her rejecting the plan. There was no way she would consent if he told her, and it would have been too risky to do it the way he had with Luxa.

"Tell me!" cried Aurora, pushing her nose to the rat's.

Ripred thought of how he would tell her what the juices of these fruits could do, how many painstaking weeks he had taken to find them, and how many tests he had gone through.

His idea hadn't worked once.

Of course, it was crazy.

He mulled it over one more time, self-doubt growing as he realized what he was going to do. When he came across the acidic pod-plants that had eaten Mange in the jungle, Ripred knew they were far from ordinary. To break down a body that quickly… he was sure that they killed cells fast and hard.

He'd read plenty about cells. Sneaking into the Overland when he was young, stealing books page by page from the libraries, had paid off. Ripred had read enough, in fact, to come to the conclusion that something living can be rejuvinated right before it dies.

And so, as Aurora stood gawking at the fruit, he almost laughed. She had no idea what their juice could do—rebuild cells. Ripred's tests consisted of dripping the acidic pod's juice on something, then dousing it with the other fruit, the miracle fruit. He'd tried it with many a blade of grass in the faraway cow's field, even with fish. That part had worked. The part that was crucial to his plan, though, hadn't. Ever.

"Aurora," he said, ready to tell her at last, "We must become human."

Aurora fell out of the crypt in a dead faint. As he was about to scream at her to fly, she flapped and alighted unsteadily in the crypt once more.

"_What mean you?"_ she said in the quietest, most intense whisper he had ever heard.

"Exactly what I said," Ripred replied. "I've found these fruits, see, in the jungle," he began. "One all but kills you—" a gasp from Aurora, "—and the other brings your body back to life. Well," he said, reconsidering, "you're not really dead, just _almost_ dead. I've been almost dead twice, it's not that bad…"

The bat's mouth still hung open.

"Okay, so here's my idea: we put a drop of Overlander blood inside the second fruit. That way, when it brings us back, it'll change the destroyed cells into human ones." After letting out a deep breath, Ripred inspected the damage. Aurora was silent and Ares—well, he was silent-er. Of course. "Yes or no?"

"Why?" asked Aurora, "Why can't we just sneak in the dead of night, see Gregor, and leave? I know they cemented the vent shut but we can just walk a little way—"

"I'm tired of that," snapped Ripred. "Sick and tired of it. I want to see their world for real, and the only way to do it is that way."

Aurora looked at him, deciding if she was going to confess that she had the exact same feelings.

"And…" said the rat, cautiously, "there's one more thing…I put both juices in the mud that I disguised Luxa with." He laughed mockingly. "I'm beginning to feel like a chemist."

"You…how could you…" Aurora was too mad for words.

"There's a simple cure, but… I thought this would be a motivation." Ripred knew he had her, that she couldn't say no.

"Yes," she sighed. "You know I am beaten."

Ripred prepared the experiment.

He really did feel like a chemist.

**Too weird? Probably. It's just an idea that's been floating around in my head for quite awhile—had to get it out there! **

**REVIEWS PLEASE! :D :D :D **


	4. A Shock

A Shock

As the boulder rolled shut behind her, Luxa stood, motionless with shock. She still couldn't believe she was in the Overland, even after looking around at the trees, the grass, the... what were those called? Stars? She began traveling in the direction Ripred had indicated, numb and reeling. It was only when a taxi nearly ran her over that Luxa began to come to terms with what had happened.

This strange, foreign place had no regard for her. Here, Luxa was nameless, not a Queen, but an outsider. There were things here that wanted to kill her just as much as the gnawers and cutters had—only they were faster, and a sword wouldn't do more than scratch them. Everything was louder and more frightening; the cars (although, to her, they were simply beasts), the lights, the sheer amount of space.

Stumbling through the streets, Luxa searched in vain for the building Ripred had described so many times. A shabby thing made of brick and cinderblock, whatever that was, painted an ugly yellowish-brown color, with lots of windows. It was also very tall, he had said. Despairing of finding the place, Luxa's heart thudded in her chest.

She could hear it growing louder and louder, almost to match the volume of the Overland.

_But you're not supposed to hear your heartbeats, _she thought. And all of the sudden, numbness filled her limbs and she collapsed. Unable to do anything about it, something that felt like fire ripped down Luxa's back. On the ground and in pain, she tried to call for help—but who would hear her? This world was too loud, too much—

And it stopped. Thank goodness, it had stopped. Luxa rose shakily to her feet, and noticed that the mud caking her body was gone. She also realized that the lighting in the Overland must be very different, because her skin looked odd. Perhaps it was only remains of the mud. Trying to decide where to go after being so disoriented, Luxa glanced about... and saw an ugly brownish building to her left. She sprinted for the front door, because she knew this is where Gregor had to live.

Flying up the stairs, to the third floor (as Ripred had told her), she knocked on apartment 36b. Her heart sank when someone she didn't know answered the door. It was a girl of about ten, her light brown hair nearly down to her waist. Luxa couldn't think of anyone that looked like this, especially not related to Gregor... maybe they had moved...

_No_, she thought, _I know that face._

But what was her name?

_Lizzie._ "Lizzie," she said, hoping for the best.

"Yeah...? Um, Mom?" Lizzie called. Luxa wondered why she didn't remember her. _Well_, _she looked older, maybe I do._ _It _has _been three years_, she reminded herself.

Luxa heard a voice from inside. "I can't come to the door, Lizzie—Gregor, can you get it?" She felt footsteps approaching, saw a silhouette in the door, and finally...

Finally...

She laid eyes on Gregor.

His brown hair had darkened slightly, and he was taller. His face had become more angular, less like the little boy she had known. But it was his eyes that surprised her the most. The pain in his eyes flickered like a torch lighting Regalia. It was almost like he was missing something, and he knew he couldn't have it. But what could it be?

"_Gregor_..." she whispered, almost reverently.

"Do I know you?" The deeper voice made her jump, but the question made her gasp.

"Of course, Gregor...it is I, Luxa..." She trailed off when she saw no recognition light up his features.

"Look," he said cautiously in his unfamiliar voice, "I don't know how you know about her, but I assure you that if you do anything to hurt her-"

"Gregor, _please_... How can you not know me?" Tears threatened to spill over her cheeks.

"I..." he began. "Oh, my word, _Luxa?_" Something the young queen had not expected rose up on Gregor's face: confusion.

She searched for a reason. "It has been many years, but I have thought of you. Is it that I have grown? What is wrong?"

Gregor didn't answer; instead, he kissed her suddenly on the cheek and took her hand. He pulled the bewildered Luxa down a hallway, brightly lit, into a tiny washroom...or at least, she thought that was what it was. There was some sort of waste bowl, a bathing chamber, and—at last, something familiar—a mirror.

_Wait!_ Luxa thought, _There's someone else in here!_ But she could not find the girl she had seen in the mirror anywhere in the room. She looked frantically for the girl she had glimpsed, the one with deep brown hair, pale blue eyes, and pale (but dark, to Luxa) skin. It couldn't be Boots, could it? The girl had looked too old—about her own age.

"Gregor," she hissed, "there's someone in here with us."

"No." He looked sad, but she couldn't think as to why. "Look at the mirror again." Gregor's words were strangled.

Luxa peered in the mirror, saw the girl again, and began to turn away—but the girl turned away at the same time. Luxa became aware that every breath she took, every move she made, was perfectly matched by that strange girl in the mirror. It was almost like they were the same—

"No..." And she looked down at herself for the first time since leaving. Luxa couldn't understand, couldn't comprehend what she was seeing. She was an Overlander, but that was impossible, was it not? No ordinary person could make this happen, pull this off.

"Ripred." Her words were pure fury, for she knew he was responsible. She should have known that he wouldn't let her leave simply covered in mud.

Luxa's anger was building to a scream, but it was stifled by Gregor's kiss.

**MUSHY! :3 yay...**

**Hope you liked it! Extra-long chapter to make up for the missed update (I was in Disney World WOOT WOOT!)**


	5. Hello

Hello

Gregor just couldn't believe Luxa was here.

That, and that she looked... that way.

How had she done it? She told him that she didn't know how, or when, it had happened. Luxa said she had an idea who had done it, but wouldn't tell Gregor.

She wasn't even sure. The queen kept wishing that if she ignored it, this nightmare would disappear. Of course, that would mean she couldn't have seen Gregor.

It was totally worth it.

Gregor didn't seem as... young as he had been. That was silly, of course, as it had been three years, but something seemed to weigh on him. When she asked, all Gregor would tell her was, "It's not you, Luxa."

About a week into her stay, Luxa detected the flaw in Gregor's life. He had to check on his Dad before anyone else was awake, since he was still sick. She noticed that he'd grown worse, his coughs louder and his time awake more sparse. She wondered if they had the same medicine in the Overland as they did in the Underland. His illness had become something that Luxa was sure was a cold she'd had as a child for no more than a week.

Of course Gregor was worried.

Luxa tried her best to fit into the household. Lizzie did her best to make the Queen feel welcome, even if she was unsure how to use a shower or watch TV. Gregor's dad had a kind word for her every day, communicated between coughs, and his mom was as sweet as Luxa remembered. The only person who had not warmed up to her in the week she had been there surprised her...

Boots.

When Boots, now six, saw Luxa for the first time, she cocked her head and went back to coloring something that looked vaguely like a butterfly. After trying to greet her a second time, Boots had run to her mother and hid behind her leg, still short enough. Days of this, and Luxa was fed up.

"Boots," Luxa said forcefully, "remember you not? I am Luxa, from the Underland. Are you avoiding me purposely?"

"Gregor says 'bout you..." Boots reluctantly testified.

"Oh?" This was suddenly very interesting to Luxa.

"Yeah," she continued, "He says 'bout you all the time, and Mama says he's tellin' stories, but, but... I don't think so. Gregor doesn't say lies. He says 'bout your pretty hair an' how good you fight and how you rided a bat an' I do believe him, but I didn't think you'd look like that..."

Her stream of words had finally run dry. They had been sweet, but Luxa sighed. She wasn't one for little kids. Then again, Boots had said Gregor talked about her. All the time.

Her next sigh was one of contentment.

The dinner was fantastic.

Fresh greens, grape tomatoes—plants Luxa had only dreamed of eating—were heaped onto her plate. She'd been told to help herself. And the tender shrimp dripping with cream sauce made her mouth water... but it made her sad. All she could think was:

Ripred would have liked this.

I didn't say thank-you.

He didn't give me a chance, of course.

But he would have liked this.

"Luxa?" asked Gregor, "Are you alright? Do you need to use a bathroom-"

"I'm fine." But she wasn't. There was nothing that could stop her missing that stubborn, rude, disgusting, brilliant rat. Luxa thought, _But I'm supposed to be happy! I'm with Gregor!_, but knew it was in vain. _Well_, she mused, _the grass is always greener on the other side... whatever that means_.

Later, the leftovers and scraps still on the table, Gregor, Boots, and Luxa sat in the living room, Luxa trying to learn how to play something called "Scrabble." Boots won nearly every time, Gregor checking her words in the dictionary and grudgingly awarding her points for her... unique... creations. Luxa could not pick out a pattern in the tiny girl's moves and thus predicted that she had no idea what she was spelling.

Not that Luxa did any better.

But sitting in that room, laughing with the two people she had missed for years, wasn't enough. She wanted to see Aurora, smiling and golden, soaring underneath Luxa and swooping into the air. She needed to see Ripred, to show the smallest appreciation for what he had done.

Gregor missed someone too.

He had since he left the Underland. Actually, since before he left.

Ares.

Being with Luxa for the week had healed the hole in his heart somewhat, but nothing could compare to seeing his bond once again. Anything to stop the nightmares, the falling, the hitting the bottom—

_Knock_.

_Knock, knock-knock, knock._

_ BANGBANGBANGBANG._

No one dared get up to answer such a loud knock. It sounded almost as if the person outside would be able to kick the door in.

Luxa looked at Gregor, fear in her eyes, and crept to the door silently. She flung it wide open, and sprung back to the Scrabble board. A stranger stood in the doorway, his grey-streaked dark hair closely and sloppily cut. His dark eyes flashed with a sort of knowing, mocking, world-weary look. Angular features defined a lean and well-built frame; a fighter's body. A long, black trench coat reached the man's knees, and his feet were encased in hard brown boots.

But what shocked the game-players the most was his scar. Two-scars, actually. They criss-crossed his face, close to his left eye.

And this man spoke, in a voice Luxa and Gregor knew all too well.

"Hello. I hope you saved some of that shrimp for me."


	6. Back in Black

Back in Black

Gregor was too stunned to speak.

Luxa stammered out, "Actually, we... er..."

Boots walked right up to him and said, "Hi, you! Sorry we didn' save you any. We didn' know you were comin'. I'm Boots."

He sneered, and looked like he was going to growl at her.

"So..." he began, "Are you going to let me in? Or do I have to fight you?" His question was directed at Gregor, who looked rather like he was having trouble breathing.

"Come on, don't tell me all your rager skills are going to waste!" he said sarcastically. The three still gaped at him, Gregor and Luxa with awe and Boots with... no, wait, she was picking her nose.

"I'm getting tired of carrying on this conversation by myself."

"You...you can come in." Gregor managed to say, finally beginning to pull himself together.

And so it was that Ripred crossed the threshold of the apartment.

Luxa couldn't register what she saw; a man completely unlike Ripred pawing through the scraps at the table in a very Ripred-like way. His voice, his scar, that look in his eyes... but it couldn't be him. She had to be dreaming. She'd been wishing he was here and-Poof!-he'd shown up within twenty minutes. Yes, Luxa knew this was a dream. But then... why did she still look like this? Why was she still like an Overlander?

"Your Highness," he said, "I'd very much appreciate it if you would stop staring at me." Luxa quickly averted the eyes she hadn't known had wandered, decoding the human features, trying to see a rat.

Gregor approached the strange man in the still room. He had to stand on tip-toe to reach Ripred's ear-his height had not much varied from six feet-but managed to whisper,

"_Are you really him? Are you really Ripred?"_

Ripred rolled his eyes and crossed to the other side of the table. "If you have something to share with the class Gregor, I suggest you tell everyone."

"Fine." This was too weird for Gregor to be playing games. He had to figure it out. "Fine, then. Are you really Ripred? I know we're all wondering."

"Yes. Do you mind if I eat this?" he replied, holding up a soggy piece of shrimp.

"Yeah, actually," said Gregor, getting seriously angry, "My mom was going to put it in the fridge." His tone was tense and deadly.

"Oh, well, that's too bad then, since I'm hungry." With that, Ripred popped the piece of shrimp into his mouth.

"_You're so..._" Gregor couldn't find the right word. "_Ripred!_"

Ripred widened his eyes in mock surprise. "Really? That one never occured to me..."

With a groan, Gregor stormed back the hallway to his room.

Luxa was the next to break from her trance. "I can't believe it... no, I take that back, I can. How did you do it, Ripred?"

"Must I explain myself again?" he replied.

"Yes."

"Fine." Ripred made his way to the couch, slumping against the sagging cushions.

"So, basically, I've been wondering about this for a while: How do I go to the Overland without getting caught? I mean, I've done it in the past, but not _really_, I haven't experienced it. There's no possible way to observe the Overland culture without being part of it. Or at least, not being something that would land be in cages in some laboratory. I did some traveling, about a year ago, actually, and found out two remarkable things-that cells can be brought back to life with extraordinary power, and that I had found a way to do it. The secret, see, was in two fruits I found in the jungle. Remember the acid pod that killed Mange?" Luxa shuddered. "See, I knew you did. Well, that kills cells. De-constructs them, actually, faster than you can say _dead_. And then in a stroke of luck-which we all know is not incredibly rare for me-I found the second fruit. The key fruit. It brings cells back to life even faster. All I had to do once I found the two was run a few tests and add the final ingredient. Overlander blood. None of those tests worked but... Look how well you turned out!"

"What?!" cried Luxa, "You mean _you _did this?"

He sighed. "Don't act like you're surprised."

She wasn't. But Luxa was angry she hadn't been informed. "I'm not... but you should have told me. This must have been shocking for Aurora... Aurora! How fares she?"

"Ah, well..." he ventured.

"I trust she's not hurt?" Poison dripped off Luxa's every word.

"Oh, no, Highness," Ripred laughed, "On the contrary! I had gathered more than one fruit for the experiment, you know."

A fire lit in Luxa's eyes. "No. You didn't."

He stuck out his lip in a mock pout. "I had so hoped you'd find this to be... gratifying?"

"Ha!" she laughed, furiously, "Gratifying? You try an experiment on my best friend, one you don't even think will work, it _kills _her, and you expect me to be-"

"Ah..." said Ripred, "You're misunderstanding. _Aurora!_" he called suddenly, "I think you can come in now!"

Luxa's head whipped toward the door, where stood a tall, tan girl of about eighteen, her golden hair flowing in ringlets down her back. Her brown eyes glittered when they met Luxa's, now blue.

"Luxa..." she started, her voice silky, but missing the purring quality of a bat's. "It has only been a short while and yet... I feel as if we are strangers."

No words could escape from Luxa's mouth. She ran to her bond, flinging her arms around her. She broke out in sobs.

"I don't care how you look," she whispered, "I just care that you're here... too many things are confusing..."

"I know. They have been quite confusing for me as well." Aurora awkwardly patted Luxa's back.

Gregor emerged from the hallway. He looked Aurora up and down, and, calmer than he had been, stated, "Hey, Aurora."

"Hello, Overlander," she replied, laughing.

"I don't think you can call me that anymore."

Even Luxa had to laugh.

"It's so good to see both of you again," Gregor said, "and you too, Luxa, for that matter. I'm sorry I got so mad, I just... I've been missing too much about the Underland, any memory hurts."

Aurora broke away from Luxa to walk over to him. She was unsteady on her feet, as if she was still getting used to the idea of walking.

"I know. Ares. I have missed him too."

It was Gregor's turn to cry. He hadn't actually cried about his lost bat since he was thirteen, but inwardly, he'd cried every day. "Thanks, Aurora," he replied.

Someone cleared their throat, very softly, in the hallway. Gregor jumped, but Aurora still stood, as if she'd been expecting it. "Gregor..." she said to him gently.

"Mmm...?" he replied.

"You may want to find something to... brace yourself against." She walked to the open door, and looked at Ripred. He nodded. Aurora beckoned a third person in the door.

He walked silently, keeping his head down. All Gregor could see of this person was that he was about Aurora's age, and had a shock of jet-black hair. When he turned his head to look at something, Gregor caught a glimpse of his eyes, the deepest black set into an olive-skinned and squarish face.

"Who are..." began Gregor, half-knowing the answer and half-dreading it.

"Overlander."

Gregor jumped, and his soul shuddered at the sound of a voice he thought was silenced forever.

"It... it has been too long..."

Sure, the raspiness had left somewhat, but the same cautious, rolling, quiet sound was burned into Gregor's heart. He couldn't forget it.

"Gregor, remember you? I am-"

"Ares. I know." His voice was choked with tears. "I'm dreaming again. I knew it. I knew it..."

"No," said this person, the one who should have been Ares, "You dream not, Overlander. I live. Of course, I do not recall death, as Ripred has informed me of..."

"Yes," cried Gregor, "You died! You died and it was my fault, Ares, okay? I couldn't let you go and I still can't! I still miss you!" Gregor broke into fresh sobs, Ripred looking on with amusement.

"Well..." ventured Ares, "I live, and I am here. I do not know how, or why, but I am here."

Gregor passed out. He didn't have any nightmares of falling.

**AWWWW ****T.T**

**Kinda too-teary, but still good, I think. Super-long chapter to make up for missed updates. Thanks loyal readers!**

**Keep reviewing!**


	7. A Prophecy Before Breakfast

A Prophecy Before Breakfast

Gregor stretched and yawned. Sun streamed through his curtains, burning bright patterns on the floor. He smiled at them for a minute, but his eyes suddenly filled with tears. He thought of the dream he'd had last night, the one about Ares. He hadn't fallen at all in his dreams, as usual. Gregor missed him more than ever.

He swung his tired legs over the side of the bed, and tried to walk quietly to the door. Everything was so peacefully quiet in the apartment-

_WHUMP._

Gregor fell unexpectedly on his face. Pushing himself up and groaning, he realized that he'd tripped over Ripred, asleep on the floor. He'd forgotten the multiple times that night that Ripred had woken him up with his snoring.

He cringed for a moment, sure the six-foot-tall Ripred would wake up and pound him for it, but he just rolled over in his sleep. Gregor let out a long-held breath and continued to the hallway. He crept down the narrow corridor, past the bathroom and his mom's room, where Aurora slept. _Wait, _he thought, _Aurora? Wasn't there someone else I'm missing? _Gregor's heart beat faster. _Luxa. That's who I missed. Right?_ The kitchen looked empty. Gregor sighed, glad to be alone after such an insane day. The night seemed crushed beneath the weight of what he'd seen yesterday.

_What was it? _He knew he was missing something, but-

"Gregor. Ah... hello."

Gregor whipped around, ready to loose the rager building inside of him upon whomever had entered his house uninvited. But what he saw was the missing piece of the puzzle of yesterday. Sitting in the old armchair between the kitchen and living room... was Ares. And suddenly, in a blink, the images came to Gregor's mind. Seeing Ares, passing out... it hadn't been a dream! Without a word, he walked over to his bond and hugged him tightly without warning. It would have been weird, if he hadn't missed Ares so much.

Ares was really unsure what to do. Gregor was doing something he'd often done—put his arms around his neck in some... gesture of affection? Appreciation? But it was different now. Everything was, now that he was an Overlander, too. He had to learn new rules. So, with some hesitation, Ares tentatively tried to put his arms around Gregor.

Then they both started laughing.

"I thought I'd never see you again!" cried Gregor, "I'm sorry about not being excited before, I just-"  
"It's alright. I understand why you would be shocked...Why are we laughing?" replied Ares.

"Because we're happy, stupid!"

And Ares' quiet wheezing chuckle joined Gregor's bright laughter.

Luxa stormed into the living room, her hair a disheveled mess. "I will have you know I was asleep!" she screeched. This only made them laugh harder.

Eventually, Gregor's whole family was awake, due to a battle of laughing and screaming they all heard coming from the living room. Gregor's mom pulled extra chairs to the table to accommodate the unexpected guests that had arrived last night. His dad started making waffles.

"Isn't there any leftover shrimp?" complained Ripred. "This smells like cardboard."

Luxa rolled her eyes. "We must learn new things, Ripred. Even if it means refusing shrimp in cream sauce."

But Gregor's mom reached into the old refrigerator, and handed Ripred a Tupperware container of leftovers. "I hope you don't mind them cold—I'm afraid Boots put a fork in the microwave last week."

"It was a _science experiment_," explained Boots. "And Mom, _pleeeeaasseee_ don't call me Boots in front of people!" Seven-year-old Boots had turned out to be nearly as smart as Lizzie when she was that age, but in a different way. Boots' way was more colorful, more... unexpected. And involved a lot more exploding microwaves.

Ripred was about to dig into the shrimp, when there was a knock on the door. Gregor rose to answer it, but Lizzie got there first. She flung the door open, her face lit up. Perhaps she was hoping for more guests. But all she was rewarded with was a small note, laid carefully on the welcome mat in the hallway. She picked it up like it was a rattlesnake.

Gregor snatched it from her as soon as he could, and ripped open the envelope. The room was silent as he unfolded the paper inside. He sat it on the kitchen table, and all the company gathered to read it. Boots had to climb up onto the table to see—she was still very small. The note began to be read at varying speeds by all the occupants of the apartment. It said:

_Beware, Overlanders, should Under ascend_

_For now it is clear, they can only intend_

_To come to your world, and to bring to an end_

_Your world as you know it_

_For their world, below it_

_Has fast become broken,_

_Too broken to mend._

_ "_What the crap..." murmured Gregor, upon finishing the note. Ares' eyes snapped up to meet Gregor's in an instant. They both knew what the note meant.

Another prophecy.

And a thousand more battles.


End file.
